My wife & I were keeping a young grandson for an afternoon. My wife said we were short of diapers and requested I go to the nearby Osco Drug Store to buy some additional ones. I located a female clerk about 20 years old at the store and asked which aisle I could find diapers. She responded, "adult or baby?".
A sweet little boy surprised his grandmother one morning and brought her a cup of
coffee. He made it himself and was so proud. He anxiously waited to hear the
verdict on the quality of the coffee. The grandmother had never in her life had such
a bad cup of coffee, and as she forced down the last sip she noticed three of those little
green army guys in the bottom of the cup. She asked, "Honey, why would three
little green army guys be in the bottom of my cup?" Her grandson replied,
"You know grandma, it's like on TV, 'The best part of waking up is soldiers in your
cup.' "
Grandpa and granddaughter were sitting talking when she
asked, "Did God make you, Grandpa?" "Yes, God made me," the
grandfather answered. A few minutes later, the little girl asked him, "Did God make
me too?" "Yes, He did," the grandpa answered. For a few minutes, the little
girl seemed to be studying her grandpa, as well as her own reflection in a small mirror.
Her grandfather wondered what was running through her mind. At last she spoke up.
"You know, Grandpa," she said, "God's doing a lot better job lately."
MY 71-YEAR-OLD grandmother began to date someone after she
had been a widow for 13 years. On the phone one evening, she talked excitedly about her
new beau. He had brought her some muffins he had made, and he had cooked lunch for her one
day. Then Grandma was silent for a moment. "Gee," she said thoughtfully,
"I'm beginning to wonder if we're having a romance or a bake-off!"
MY GRANDMOTHER was a ball of fire. Grandpa was slow and
deliberate. One night they were awakened by a commotion in the chicken, house. Grandma
sprang out of bed, ran to the chicken house and found the cause of the racket, a large
black snake. Having nothing to dispatch it with, she clamped her bare foot down on its
head. There she stood, until Grandpa arrived, a good 15 minutes later. He was fully
dressed, with every button buttoned, and he even had his pocket watch in place.
"Well," he said cheerfully to my disheveled and enraged grandma, "if I'd
known you had him, I wouldn't have hurried so."
MY HUSBAND'S grandparents, married for more than 50
years, went to a restaurant for lunch, where Papa ordered a Ruben sandwich.
"He'll have the red snapper," Gram brusquely told the waitress. "He
doesn't like Rubes."
"I'll have the Ruben," Papa shot back.
"Red snapper!"
Papa sighed in resignation. Shrugging, he explained to the waitress,
"When you've been married as long as I have, you get set in her ways."
MY 93-YEAR-OLD grandmother had been coddled by her family all
her life, protected from any unsettling or unpleasant event. And always she was the last
person to be told.
Obviously Granny had been wise to our ways. When she took a turn for the
worse and was confined to a geriatric hospital, one of the doctors told us what she had
said: "When I die, don't tell my family. Throw a party in my name, and tell
them I was transferred to another city."
MY GRANDMOTHER, 75 at the time, went downtown to see her
ophthalmologist, whose office was in a large hotel. But there was a door at the end of a
corridor she couldn't open. She gave the knob a good, hard twist but that didn't help.
Then she tugged and rattled the handle quite vigorously. Suddenly she heard a voice say.
"Take it easy, lady! The bar doesn't open for another two hours!"
A FRIEND was making dolls for her grandchildren. As she
was painstakingly finishing a dimpled knee, the phone rang. "Hi, Mom, what are
you doing?" came her son's cheery voice. Removing pins from her mouth, my
friend answered, "Making babies." There was silence at the other end.
Then, quietly, "Oh, is Dad home?"
WHEN my daughter Caroline asked me if I would baby-sit for
her six-month-old identical twins, I was hesitant. "How am I going to tell April from
Stacey?" I asked. Caroline was busy getting ready to leave the house.
"Just ask Rick," she said, nodding at her four-year-old, who was engrossed in a
cartoon show on TV. "He knows." Confidently, I undressed the twins
and put them in the bath. When I was ready to dress them, I called to Rick.
"Which one is which?" "That's easy," he yelled back, eyes still
riveted on Bugs Bunny. "April always wears blue."
MY TWO daughters often tease their grandfather about being
stubborn, a trait he strenuously denies. One day Grandpa was telling them about a
horse-pack trip he had taken up the Continental Divide. "The guides felt that
the personalities of horse and rider should be compatible," he related. "They
matched us up carefully." "What was your horse like?" one daughter
broke in. Grandpa's answer was reluctant. "They gave me a mule," he said.
SIX months before we were married my fiancée took me to
"meet the family." Bill's 95-year-old grandmother is sweet and lively but,
like many other hard-of-hearing people, she speaks loudly. As I was admiring the
pictures of her children and grandchildren in the living room she took Bill to one side
and discreetly shouted, "Don't worry. I put away all those pictures of you with
that other girl."
SEVERAL of our neighborhood mothers were visiting one evening
when the subject of the "worst stage" of childhood came up. "If I can just
get through the twos," came one moan.
"No - they're a breeze compared with the beginning-of-school
stage," came a quick reply.
"And how about those teen years," groaned a third.
Then, during a lull in the conversation, the only grandmother in the group
added seriously, "Just wait until they're forty-two!"
GRANDPA was an old fashioned, Victorian music teacher who
lived parsimoniously but couldn't resist a bargain. Once when I visited him, he met me in
a state of mildly suppressed excitement. "Come and see what I got at a sale," he
said. He produced two long-playing jazz records - and Grandpa was no jazz buff. I didn't
think he even knew what jazz was. Well, he hauled out the old windup phonograph and
prepared to play the first record. I was horrified. "You can't play that record
on that phonograph," I spluttered. "It's a long-playing microgroove
record. The needle will ruin it."
"Nonsense," he snapped. "It's a record. That's a record
player."
His face was a study as he listened to the agonizing, squeaky cacophony that flowed
from the tired old machine as it ground around. With an air of finality, he took the
record off, closed the machine and said, "Well, if that's jazz, I don't like
it."
MY AUNT'S neighbors were voted "Parents of the
Year" by their small town. They were grandparents many times over and, in
addition to their own large family, they had adopted several children of different colors
and creeds. A family reunion had been organized in conjunction with the award
ceremony and the entire community turned out to honor them. During a televised interview
the mother was asked how many children they had raised. "None," she answered
firmly. Then, looking lovingly over the front two rows of the audience, she added softly,
"But we've raised 17 fine adults."
WHEN my grandmother first went to the United States from the
Philippines, she had to go through customs. The customs officer asked her whether she had
any dried fish, salted shrimp fry, or mangoes. Unaware that this was part of the routine
inspection, my grandmother politely replied, "Had I known you wanted any, sir, I
would have brought you some."
ON A car trip, my grandparents stopped at a roadside
restaurant for lunch. There on a table Grandma left her sunglasses, which she didn't miss
until she and Grandpa were back in their car on the highway. By then, they had to travel
some distance before they could find a place to turn around. Grandpa fussed and
complained, but gradually quieted down as they neared the restaurant. As he got out of the
car it was in a humble voice that he said, "Well, I guess while I'm in there I might
just as well get my hat."